LAS VEGAS — As the consensus No. 1 player in the class of 2017, DeAndre Ayton didn't exactly have a lot to prove in this week’s recruiting showcases.
He’d also probably attract a crowd everywhere he went.
So he stayed home.
Ayton’s coach with the Cal Supreme club, Gary Franklin, understood.
Being top-rated “definitely has some effect on him,” Franklin said. “A lot of those guys who get a lot of hype, there’s a lot on their shoulders. DeAndre is not a kid who loves publicity. It’s a lot of pressure.”
At the same time, Cal Supreme lost another top 2017 player – and another UA recruiting target — this week when forward Brandon McCoy stayed out because of a deep thigh bruise.
The two losses hurt the Cal Supreme notably Wednesday, when it was forced to move up some players from its U16 club, then lost 71-56 to Team Loaded Virginia.
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Still, Franklin declined to make it an excuse.
“We just missed like 13 free throws,” Franklin said. “We make at least 10 of those and …. We competed but we couldn’t get multiple stops. We tried.”
Cal Supreme, which counts Parker Jackson-Cartwright and Solomon Hill as its alums, still had another pair of UA targets playing for its U17 team on Wednesday: Forward Tevian Jones and guard Brandon Williams, two of the top players in the class of 2018.
Cal Supreme also has UA target Shareef O’Neal, Shaq’s class of 2018 son, playing for its U16 team.
Taeshon Cherry, a 6-8 class of 2018 forward from San Diego now playing for the Oakland Soldiers, recently picked up an offer from Kansas while keeping UA involved in his recruitment. He said he is thinking of visiting for the Red-Blue Game in October.
“Coach (Sean) Miller and coach (Joe) Pasternack, we built a great relationship,” Cherry said. “I can call them and have a conversation about anything, not just basketball. It’s cool talking to them.”
Cherry and Tempe guard Alex Barcello, another UA target in the class of 2017, had to reach for a little extra on Wednesday thanks to the arrival of the “NY2LA Summer Showdown.”
The special two-day event at Durango High School scheduled the Soldiers for a 9:20 p.m. game – just two hours after they finished a 6:15 game against a Texas club in the Bigfoot Las Vegas Classic at Spring Valley High School.
Fortunately for the Soldiers, the two gyms are only about 10 minutes apart. And they also had former Soldiers Stanley Johnson and Aaron Gordon, both in town for the USA Select team workouts, show up for support.
Somehow, the Soldiers won both games, beating the Aleval Eagles of Texas 86-68 and then getting past a tougher MBA Hoops Elite team 76-69 in the NY2LA event.
Barcello said he played fewer minutes against the Eagles in order to save energy, but it still wasn’t easy.
“That’s just something you gotta push through,” Barcello said. “Tonight my shot wasn’t falling, so I had to do other things. I had to get to the rim, get guys the ball, get them easy looks, had to rebound and had to play D. I just try to do other things.”
A former Soldier, forward Ira Lee of the class of 2017, said he’s embracing a bigger, more versatile role with the Earl Watson Elite. He said UA has talked to him about playing a versatile combo forward role similar to that of Aaron Gordon and Solomon Hill. He’s also considering Cal and Texas among his top choices.
“Definitely here, I’ve got an all-around role,” Lee said. “They want me to throw the ball, they want me to make good passes, make good decisions, and they want me to do rebound. Last year, I was rebound-glue guy.”
Lee, a Glendale native who moved to Southern California at age 12, took an unofficial visit to Arizona last month.
“It went well but it wasn’t my first time there, so there wasn’t anything new,” Lee said. “I knew what everything was like. I just wanted to go there.”
ICYMI, we had a overview of what the UA coaches can get out of this weekend in Las Vegas, with a list of some key prospects they are looking at.
Plenty of results and schedule info from the Las Vegas events can be found on the pages for the Fab 48, Las Vegas Classic, NY2LA and Adidas Summer Championships. But be warned: You may have to decipher some pages that look like this…
